I just re-watched the battle of Shattrath cinematic. If we end up getting that Yrel instead of a typical draenei/prophet/Light fanatic then I’m into it. The draenei can be pretty one note often. I love the Lightforged but… case in point.
If we get a BBEG that has a bit of wit to her? I’m down.
“What do YOU want, little girl?”
“Your head.”
Epic. More of that.
I do hope she comes back, and brings along ‘Exarch Hellscream’ with her.
I really doubt old man Grommash is dead, either.
I anticipate a story where Yrel travels to Azeroth. The Infinite Dragonflight is involved next expansion, after all.
You’re going to get tyrannical, light-fanatic High Exarch Yrel as an eventual loot pinata, and you’re going to like it.
Inevitably, she will be drawn to the Sunwell if she does make it to Azeroth, and bam! Quel’thalas as relevant content + revamped zone for the Blood Elves. Thanks, Yrel.
Sorry, but female characters don’t die as raid bosses, and they usually get redeemed if they’ve been a bit bad. Case in point, Sylvanas.
Satire aside, I actually think a Lightbound Turalyon would be a raid boss, and Yrel would be freed from AU Xe’ra’s influence as his final act before his mind is wiped clean and he’s just a light puppet. In a way, I’d almost prefer that as well… its weird that the Lightforged Draenei aren’t actually led by a Lightforged Draenei.
Having Velen, Yrel, and Nobundo as the new triumvirate for the united Draenei race would be pretty cool. Although, I suspect Nobundo might die off and Dornaa take’s his place as the Draenei Shaman lore character, and becomes a part of this new Triumvirate before he even has a chance. If Salandria is getting some development in Dragonflight, Dornaa deserves some as well.
So literally just Thrall and Grommash vs Mannoroth, but with Yrel and Turalyon VS AU Xe’ra.
Was Thrall enslaved by Mannoroth and made into a mindless puppet?
But yeah, kind of a similar scenario I suppose. Not the worst parallel ever drawn between events in WoW.
For some reason I want to say I hate it, but … I actually don’t. I’d go with it.
If it played out like described, I’d like to see Turalyon get treated well in it (that is to say, not murdered). A heroic moment freeing Yrel, then a meat puppet, then Alleria breaks him free (by that I mean we beat on him until he is freed) but his mind is still wiped and some sort of amnesia arc. He can even have some of the same PC feelings regarding things like when it’s explained we traveled to the afterlife and killed WoW Satan.
It doesn’t have to end up with Turalyon living, characters do die sometimes and dying heroically saving Yrel would be pretty cool, but I don’t like killing characters off very often. Plus, Turalyon the amnesiac sounds kind of fun (to me):
Faol: “Hello Alleria, I just heard the news and came as quickly as I could!”
Turalyon: “Uhh…”
Alleria: “Thank you Alonsus. You have been a true friend to Turalyon.”
Turalyon: “Err…”
Faol: “I know you don’t remember me Turalyon, but you and I were once friends.”
Turalyon: “… A piece of your skin just fell off …”
No. Just… no.
Trying to shoehorn the cosmic and moral equivalent of the Horseshoe Theory into WoW is terrible writing (and overdone in Blizzard’s storytelling as a whole). You can’t compare a bloodthirsty, unforgiving, combat-loving sadist to someone who was at most a control freak. If you want to go that route, Xe’ra was a sweetheart compared to Mannoroth (or N’Zoth, or Lich King Arthas, or Lei Shen, the Jailer or even Illidan for that matter). And if the writers go that route, it shows how little respect they have for their own lore and story progression.
And are we all going to ignore Yrel’s scars from her experiences with the Iron Horde? And how is Xe’ra supposed to be a threat if she keeps getting one-shotted? Maybe the writers should focus on that instead of their edgelord power fantasies.
Now that they aren’t hunted anymore, I can see the Draenei reevaluating things. Do we really need to be so loyal to the wind chimes?
I swear, that thing is like a giant lamp for light-wielders as if they were moths. Small wonder so many people in the Alliance are obsessed with Quel’thalas.
To this day I choose to believe that BS story about Yrel going crazy and all never happened, or it was a dreadlord or something
Well, considering those “wind chimes” saved the space goats from being hunted to extinction repeatedly, preserved much of their culture and helped them fight back against the Burning Legion and other oppressors… I’d say even if not complete obedience, the Naaru deserve some respect from the Draenei.
World’s going mad when a Death Knight is less edgy than a paladin lol
Anything could happy with Yrel.
She could simply fade from the story if Blizzard pulls a “without Azeroth to anchor the planet, AU Draenor and everyone on it faded away to the sands of time” angle. They could also have her be the face of the invading enemy to Azeroth and end up a killed raid boss or merely defeated. imprisoned, and then have death by redemption against the real final villain.
They could also easily have us thinking that Yrel is in charge of the Lightbound should they invade, only for us to learn that there was a coup against her because she realized that she was being duped and then overthrown before she could do anything about it. Thus she freed and aids us and stuff.
Was going to say that they shouldn’t go down that good vs evil road again and rather develop Yrel’s point of view, make her Lightbound join the Alliance, and have both the AU Mag’har and the AU Draenei have their own valid reasons to do do what they’re doing… But since Yrel has gone forceful conversion mode they just pigeonholed their narrative once again because there’s no way in hell forceful conversion can be justified.
There are tons of ways for Yrel to make her return. She is a pretty blank slate, and has her own time jump going on, where stuff is happening behind the scenes that we are not aware of.
One of my pet theories is that she finds a way to Azeroth in order to kill/destroy/control the Bronze Dragons. In this theory, she blames them for what Garrosh and Kairoz did to AU Draenor, and she thinks the Bronze Flight has forfeited its dominion over time.
I thought it would be a cool cinematic if Yrel and her Lightbound stormed the Caverns of Time, and started smashing eggs and slaying Bronze Dragons. Maybe we could see Chromie being subdued and captured in the background. Maybe Yrel even kills Nozdormu in the cinematic - shattering everything we thought we knew about his future and the End Time, while also creating a new time line going forward.
Also, in one of the various Scarlet Crusade threads, I mentioned that I would get a kick out of it if :
The Scarlets gain favor with the Humans of Stormwind, and then they summoned Yrel and her Lightbound into Stormwind. In an attempt to purge Azeroth of non believers - but the Scarlets are disappointed when they see a bunch of Draenei, Orcs, and other non Humans in Yrel’s army.
She thanks them for performing the will of the Light - and then she starts massacring the city and she begins her crusade from there.
Well that was sort of going on in Shadowlands. Bolvar was pretty lame and tame, while Uther was the angsty edge lord, chucking souls into the Maw.
I completely forgot that the Alliance was already full of so many tyrannical light-worshipping fanatics seeking to spread the dominion of light to every corner of the world! Silly me. 
While I take issue with Revir’s use of the word “literal” I think it was mainly intended as a comparison of the roles within the plot, not the nature of the act/actors.
AU Xe’ra is a complete unknown beyond the Mag’har scenario. We only see Lightmother and assume Xe’ra. Could be a different floating chandelier entirely.
Conceptually it’s just a heroic sacrifice story.
Turalyon risks everything to receive an audience with Yrel. He explains that the Lightbound have lost their way. The Lightmother is hanging from the ceiling like a good chandelier and sees Yrel hesitate. Yrel realizes Turalyon is a good person, not corrupted, and a true champion of the Light.
The chandelier spins aggressively and makes a comment about “doing what’s best for the universe” drawing the attention of the human-goat diplomacy mission. Turalyon shields Yrel leaving himself open for the effect which bathes the room in light and leaves Turalyon a mindless husk of Light. While shielded, Yrel uses her newfound knowledge of Azeroth to execute a “bubble hearth” that she mispronounces. Or maybe a portal appears that was intended to save Turalyon and she hops through.
In a later raid, the AU Lightmother tries to have Turalyon perform a similar act on his children (egads adventurers!) but the power of Alleria’s love for him (and 20 adventurers beating on him) breaks the hold the AU Lightmother has on him long enough for us to whisk him away to safety. He reveals he remembers nothing by being unable to understand a word anyone says nor speak Common. It’s a process.
While we hunt the evil AU Lightmother down, we quest to grab Turalyons memories via mini games. “Hey look! I found Turalyon’s memory of one of his kids! Wonder where the other one is. Ooops time-gated.”
Then when we get to the AU Lightmother we beat on her until she is subdued (she’s just misguided after all, the Light will redeem her) but then we find (in a Mythic only secret phase) the Infinite Dragonflight performing a ritual to merge the two universes - and all others. The split timelines have yielded aspects of individual being heightened in one or another. Garrosh had very little evil, but it manifested in one evil Garrosh while all others are the greatest Horde leaders (for some reason though he’s still dead - the universe is a weird place); the Lightmother had very little evil, and it was spread in varying degrees of control issues; Gul’dan is almost always evil but in one universe he is a non-dancing clown made of candy (we learn this from dialogue, but also he’s a new decoration for Hollow’s End where we can pick candy off him and eat it for a random buff); somehow there is no evil Anduin in any universe, because Anduin.
More importantly, Nozdormu has seen what comes next and has changed from Bronze to Infinite! The split universes will be overcome by the Devourers from outside our universe. To help bolster the defenses of the universe against the Devourers coming to eat existence (oh no!) they must combine our strength. Once the ritual completes, the Lightmother becomes benevolent. A force for good. Just in time to watch a giant Devourer appear and eat a bunch of the Infinite Dragonflight. Someone magical whisks us away and we prepare for the fight to not be eaten.
Then comes the new expansion intro screen:
World of Warcraft: Don’t be Eaten.
This story writes itself.
Oh, no. It’s as Zarrín says, I meant that as more of a comparison of roles. In this particular case it’d be a heroic sacrifice with the intent on liberating a people from a subjugating power/power source while another character is present to observe the act. We’ve seen it several times, even beyond Grom and Thrall.
We know how Blizzard loves to rehash concepts. Though the execution gets progressively worse each time.
The Light VS Time is such an unusual thematic idea that I kind of want to see it.
Honestly, I hope like hell they don’t revisit Yrel… Don’t ruin my memories of her in WoD any more than they have already.